NaPoWriMo 2

After PAD Challenge 2: Write a water poem.



Singing Beach, July 2009


It is the uncertainty
that keeps me wading.
I step on shells broken
long before I was born.
Give me mussels,
red algae, a hermit crab's home
abandoned in foreclosure.
My watery reflection
shimmers back at me
under the hot July sun
revealing nothing
but a body at rest.
I uncuff my jeans,
let the caked sand fall
over my painted toes,
listen to water splash
and lap as it tells me
what it means to be patient—
how to endure erasure
and fill an empty space
with something more than tears.

Comments

Catherine said…
I really like this, how you make a simple scene come to mean something more. (I signed up last year for the Poetic Asides prompts to be e-mailed, and I am still getting them, but they come so late they are pretty useless. I don't actually have this one yet. So I decided to stick with the RWP ones this year - or perhaps I should add Poetic Asides to my google reader feed.)
Anonymous said…
the opening two lines really hooked me!
Jessie Carty said…
the line break from hermit crab to foreclosure is just too darn funny :)
Kay Cooke said…
Oh yes - it is the beach: it's the sand and the water, tides and life - opening, closing, giving, patience; especially patience. Lovely !

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